Afterthoughts
by Star24
Summary: Logan's thoughts after BT and HL. PG13 for some language. 3/2/02 Max's POV added.
1. Logan

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Disclaimer: Don't own them – do you think that the stuff that has gone on this season would be happening if I did? 

A/N: It's been a while and frankly my muse has been refusing to come out of hiding. She is really furious about the total nonsense that is Dark Angel Season 2 and has been threatening to go on permament hiatus from the show. I've been doing some S1 music videos and I think seeing what was so magical about S1 convinced her to come out for a bit. This is the result. Not a very happy one but it's something. I may be able to convince her to give me a Max POV as well. One other thing I've been doing is sending postcards and emails to Fox to let them know what idiots they are being. If anyone wants to do the same and doesn't know where to send them or what to send just check out the NBML site – links to it have been posted on DATV, the Official Board and various other sites on the web. If you can't find one email me and I'll give you one. Hope you enjoy this – I think it's too sad personally but ….

Logan

God she looked so young and alone and helpless lying there on that beat up old couch. I never wanted to do anything so much in my life as to stay with her and hold her and take care of her. But I can't. Can't touch her because of the fucking virus Manticore put into her. Can't stay with her because she won't ask and I can't take any more of the pain. The pain of being with her and knowing she isn't mine, may never be mine. But I'm hers, body and soul and heart. I tried to tell her that morning in that old junker of a car. She just looked at me with those fathomless brown eyes and didn't say anything as I laid bare my soul. I wasn't going to say the words, not without something from her first, but as I started to turn to walk away something stopped me and I heard myself saying hoarsely "I love you Max." But still all she did was look at me. That's when I knew I had to stop the madness before it killed me. I'm only human and there's only so much I can take. I was at my limit.

Does she understand? Can she understand? I know she has a heart and a soul locked up inside of her. I've seen it in her eyes. But will she ever be able to break down those walls and unlock the locks that Manticore built around her human side? I thought so at one time but since she's come back I just don't know anymore. 

I never hurt so much in my life as I did when I thought she was dead. When she came back to me I never felt such joy. That lasted all of about 2 minutes and then the virus from hell struck. Once we figured out what was going on I still managed to keep my optimism and hope – after all she was alive. There had to be a way somehow, somewhere, to cure the virus. But over the last few months as one dead end lead to yet another I've felt it waning. And Max, Max never seemed to have much hope to start with. I think that hurt more than anything. The fact that she seemed to be giving up so easily. I've started to think that maybe I didn't mean to her what she did to me. Understandable. She's the genetically engineered piece of perfection and I'm the crippled normal human. 

When she showed up at my door last week and then dropped her bomb on me about the 11 hour reprieve I think I was in shock. A part of me was saying "Hold on Cale, slow down, be cautious." but all she had to do was look at me and I was lost. Completely and utterly, as I have been since I caught her robbing my apartment. So I threw caution to the winds and went for it. And screwed it up again. The only thing I wanted to do right then and there was hold her in my arms and finally say the words to her. The words I kicked myself for witholding for so many months because I was afraid to say them to her. I wanted to hold her and tell her and then show her what she meant to me. I wanted to worship her with my words and with my body. To make her truly mine. But I was a fool once again.

All she had to do was look at me and tell me she wanted to take it slow, make it perfect and I backed off. Backed off when I should have pushed forward. I knew what Manticore was, knew about lost opportunities. I knew better than to waste the little time we had but I did it anyway. I made her a perfect dinner, with the perfect wine and we had a perfect conversation about nothing. Then we began to dance to a perfect song. After wasting a year dancing around each other we wasted two more hours of precious unrecoverable time. And of course in the end Manticore, this time in the form of Joshua, intervened once again to make a mockery of our perfect night together. Instead of spending the precious gift of time we had been given sharing our love we spent it wrapped up in goo in an old wreck in a junkyard. 

And that night ended with me sitting in that other old car next to her, feeling the same pain I felt when I thought she was dead. Who knows if there is such a thing as a cure for the hell virus. Renfro told her there wasn't. The thing seems invincible and invulnerable. I thought her being dead was the worst thing imaginable but I was wrong. Her being alive and in front of me and yet even further away than ever is worse. I knew when her beeper went off if I touched her it could be deadly but at that moment I didn't care. I almost hoped it would be. As I kissed her I remember thinking that maybe the kiss would kill me and end the pain. But it didn't. And then I heard myself telling her I loved her. If she had only responded to me, let me know that she felt the same maybe things would be different. I waited a second hoping for some words from her but got nothing. So that's when I knew what I had to do. 

I still love her and I will always love her. I can't not love her, she is part of my very being. But I have to protect myself from her at the same time. I'll never let anything happen to her if it is within my power. That's why when the hospital called yesterday I went into full panic mode. That's why I took the chance that gloves and fabric would prevent the virus from infecting me as I pulled her into the chopper.

But that's all I can do now. I can't open myself up to that awful soul destroying pain again. I can't sit there with her and watch her and love her not knowing if she can love me back. No, that's wrong I know she loves me but I don't know if she will ever be able to say it, to make herself that vulnerable. And until she can (if she ever can) I can't take any more. I can't be around. I still have Eyes Only but I have neglected it shamefully for the last few months. I need to get back to it. The world is still broken and people are still in need and danger. I need to get back to doing what I can to help. Eyes Only kept me going when I thought she was dead, it will keep me going now when she might as well be. 

Maybe someday I'll open my door and Max will be standing there. She'll come in and she'll finally be able to say those three precious words to me. The virus may or may not be cured – I won't care. What will matter is her opening herself up to me the way I've opened myself to her. I learned the hard way while she was "dead" that you need to say the words when you can. I'm praying that Max will learn that as well before it's too late for us. Time is precious and fleeting, who knows how much time either one of us has left. I don't know what tomorrow will bring and right now I can't afford to care. All I can do is get through today, one minute at a time. And every night I say a prayer that somewhere, somehow it will all come right and that in the end love will indeed have its way. 


	2. Max

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A/N: Well I tried Max's POV. Not sure how well it came out but here it is. Now I'm off to send more postcards and letters to Fox begging them to bring back our wonderful leads. If you like my fics and want to inspire me tpo write more the best thingis to join the campaign – if we can get Fox/DA to restore Max and Logan I know I will be writing a lot more. 

Once upon a time I had a life. A strange little life to be sure but it was a life. I had a job, I had friends and I even had some siblings so you could say I had a family of sorts. Not bad for someone who was made in a petri dish and raised to be an inhuman super soldier. 

Best of all despite everything it seemed I had found someone special to me. I wasn't raised to believe in emotions or love or happily ever after but when I met Logan I found myself starting to believe in all of those things. I don't know how it happened but there was something about him that spoke to me from the first time I saw him finishing up an Eyes Only broadcast in his fancy apartment. He came from a world I can't begin to imagine even now. But somehow we connected from that very first time our eyes met as he held that shotgun on me. 

We spent a year fighting it and then finally it seemed like we were on the verge of…something. But of course my very own personal nemesis intervened and it's been downhill ever since. Even when I was captive for those months in Manticore I had hope. Every night I replayed the moments I had with Logan over and over in my mind and dreamt of when I would get back to him. It's how I kept my sanity and my self intact. And then the miracle happened or so it seemed and I was out and back with him. The joke was on me though – Manticore put this hell virus inside of me and now I can't touch Logan or he will die.

It makes me want to die. Somehow Logan became an essential part of me, of my very being. I don't understand how it happened but I know that without him I'm not functioning anymore. I go through the motions but I feel like a hollow shell. OC doesn't understand, she thinks I should be with him anyway, spend time talking and eating and being in his company. I think Logan feels the same way. But they don't get it.

I am petrified when I am around him. All it takes is one stupid little touch and he will be dead. One second of carelessness. A spoon in some sauce, a touch of a finger handing him a beer. Stupid, miniscule everyday things. So I try to be with him and laugh and enjoy but inevitably something almost happens and my heart stops for a second. I feel the bottom dropping out of my world and the black terror taking over my soul. If I kill him I will die myself. Maybe not physically but in every way that matters. 

I want a cure to this damn virus so badly. I want to be with Logan to get to know him again (he's changed since the Manticore raid) and explore what we might have together. I was thrilled and terrified at the same time when I found the temporary cure. I almost didn't go see Logan because I was afraid of what might happen. But I couldn't stop myself and the look on his face when I told him about the cure and he understood that we could actually touch made my heart stop. 

I was so afraid that he didn't care anymore, that my behavior had made him stop caring. Logan can be hard to read sometimes and he can put up walls of his own. Lately I was feeling those walls going up again against me. Maybe because of the way I've been but I don't know how to explain it to him. What do I say, "Logan I love you but I can't be around you because it hurts to much and I'm too scared?" I'm afraid that would only make it worse for both of us. 

But the night that was supposed to be perfect turned into yet another disaster. My fault. Logan wanted to move forward, no more dancing around, that was obvious. When I told him I wanted it to be perfect his "What about a perfect quickie?" was truth presented as humor. He meant it and I should have taken him up on it. It _would_ have been perfect because it was Logan and we would have finally shared those feelings that have been there from the beginning. No, I had to waste more time and it turned out there was no time to waste. I should have known. Logan was angry at the end. I could tell and he was right to be. I wasted the only time we may ever have to be together. Ever. I should have learned a long time ago that there is no time to waste. 

When Logan sat in that car and told me how he was hurting I wanted to die myself. Every word of his was like a knife into my heart. I can't stand to see him hurt like that. And when he said that if he had the time back he'd do things differently I knew he wasn't just talking about the year we wasted, he was talking about the two hours we wasted as well. We had a second chance and we threw that away (I threw that away) just like we did the first one. Who knows if we'll get a third. I don't even know if he wants a third.

At the end he kissed me even after the beeper went off and told me he loved me but then he turned and walked away. I was paralyzed when he said those words. I wanted to reply but my voice wouldn't come out and when it finally did he was gone. Now he won't even answer my calls. In order to see him I have to end up in a hospital with a bullet in my gut. 

He came though. He even told them he was my husband. Probably just so he could get in to see me easily. And he saved my life again. First from that psycho nurse and then from White. At the end he risked his life to save mine. He had confidence the gloves would protect him, more than I did. I was so afraid to touch him even with those but the look in his eyes and the force of his will had me reaching out and grabbing on to him. And it was okay thank God. It hurt though. To be sitting on his lap in his arms again for that short helicopter ride. It hurt because it's where I want most to be and I knew I shouldn't, couldn't be there. 

Now he's gone again. He brought me home to Cindy and left me to her. I wanted him to stay so badly.

I was watching him across the room as Cindy settled me on the couch. He looks different. Harder, more closed off. Understandable. But when he came and looked down at me all I wanted to do was reach out to him and have him hold me in his arms again. Me the genetically revved up super soldier and all I want is to be with Logan Cale, mere mortal and crippled one at that. But he's my hero despite all that. He's my knight in shining armor even though I'm a poor excuse for a fairy tale princess.

I wanted him to stay but I couldn't ask him to. Because whenever he's around me he just gets hurt more. I don't want him hurt anymore. He's dealt with enough pain in his life already. I just bring more and he doesn't deserve it. If he stayed on his own I wouldn't stop him, but I can't ask him to. So he left again. He told me to take care of myself and left. Cindy says he still loves me and maybe she's right. But he's pulling away from me and who am I to stop him. I'm deadly to him, poison. He deserves a life and someone who can love him the way he needs to be loved. I thought maybe I could do that a long time ago but I just don't know anymore. Maybe I'm fated to be the little mermaid from the original fairy tale. Condemned to never fitting in and being part of normal human life. Outwardly looking like everyone else but walking on knives with every step I take. I don't know anymore. 

I cry myself to sleep every night and dream of Logan but I can't go to him, can't tell him what he wants to hear. Maybe someday when I find a cure for this Frankenstein virus, if he's still around and still wants to hear it I can go to him. I'll ring his bell and when he opens the door I'll give him those words I know he wants from me. Maybe then the fairy tale ending will happen and we will get our happy ever after. Maybe love will find a way. Someday.


End file.
